George B. Cartledge, Sr., born in Georgia in 1910. Mr. Cartledge got his start in the furniture industry as a salesman in Atlanta in 1931. In 1937, he and two partners established Southeast Wholesale Furniture in Atlanta and expanded to Roanoke in 1945 with their acquisition of Grand Piano and Furniture Company. Throughout the growth of his company, Mr. Cartledge demanded perfect honesty and consideration for customers, offering a frosty Coke to everyone who walked in the store.

Grand began expanding outside of Roanoke in February 1951 when it opened a store in Radford, Virginia, followed later in the year with a store in Covington, Virginia. The fourth Grand store opened in Lynchburg, Virginia in September 1953. It was here that the tradition of serving Coke in the “little bottles” (holding 6.5 ounces) to customers was born as an opening day promotion. The swarm of people who gathered to visit the store was so great that the police were called in to provide control and the street was blocked off. By the end of the day, the Lynchburg store served 12,000 (some sources say 14,000) ice-cold Cokes. As Grand’s vice-president of advertising told Virginia Business in 1999, “Forty-six years ago it didn’t take much to move people’s meter.”

George Cartledge, Sr. was quick to recognize the potential of the soda giveaway, and soon free Cokes were being served at all the Grand stores on a daily basis. It became more than a gimmick, evolving into a key element of the chain’s success. Cartledge took it so seriously that he issued a memo that has become part of company lore on how to properly serve a bottle of Coke. He wrote in part: “Let me emphasize how important it is to give our Cokes with enthusiasm and a smile. … Salespeople and store managers too should watch the door and be ready with a Coke when the customers walk in.” It became a tradition with customers as well, as parents who cherished the memory of their first Coke at a Grand Piano store brought their own children to share the experience.

When Mr. Cartledge received the National Home Furnishings Association “1996 Retailer of the Year” award, which recognizes business leadership as well as industry and community service, it was stated, “His accomplishments as a businessman, father, citizen, industry and commerce leader serve as a role model and guide for all of us in the home furnishings industry.” He was the recipient of the Virginia Retailer of the Year and received honors from numerous civic organizations. He died in March of 1997 at the age of 87.

George B. Cartledge, Sr. was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1991.

John Palmer Fishwick was an American railroad executive and chief executive of Norfolk and Western Railway.

Born on September 29, 1916, in Roanoke, Virginia, John was a graduate of Jefferson High School downtown. Fishwick attended Roanoke College, where he was a member of Kappa Alpha Order and served as editor of the College’s newspaper. He graduated in 1937 with a major in English and a minor in economics. Fishwick furthered his education at Harvard Law School, graduating in 1940. After completing law school, he worked as an associate with Cravath, Swaine & Moore before joining the Navy in 1942. Fishwick left the United States Navy as a lieutenant commander. After World War II, he joined Norfolk and Western in November 1945 and worked as assistant to the general counsel. In 1947, he was promoted to assistant general solicitor, and in 1951 he was promoted to assistant general counsel. In 1954, he was promoted yet again, this time to general solicitor. He served as general counsel until his promotion to chief executive in 1970.

He served as the chief executive of Norfolk and Western from 1970 to 1981. His leadership was integral in the merger with Southern Railway to create the current Norfolk Southern Railway. After his retirement, he became a partner with Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf until his retirement in 1986.

Mr. Fishwick died on August 9, 2010. On July 16, 2018, the Roanoke City School Board announced that Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Roanoke, VA would be renamed John P. Fishwick Middle School in his honor.

John P. Fishwick was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1991.

Sigmund Edward Davidson was born on January 14, 1922, in Roanoke, Virginia. Sig contributed to the economic vitality of the Roanoke Valley through Davidsons – a men’s clothier founded in 1910 by his father, Joseph Davidson. Sig was just finishing his first semester at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business when the impact of the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor compelled him to move back to Roanoke to help with the family business, enroll in Roanoke College, and enlist in the United States Army in September 1942.

Sig was granted student deferment and set his sights on accomplishing a few things before reporting for duty. He secured a date with the young Harriet Cohen (whose photo had rendered him irreversibly smitten years prior), married his sweetheart, and graduated from Roanoke College in February 1943. Sig served in the World War II European Theatre from March of 1943 until October of 1945, initially as a mortar gunner and later a squad leader as Sergeant. He received word of the birth of his first child, daughter Bonnie, while recovering from a combat wound suffered in March of 1945.

Sig returned to Roanoke decorated with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for conspicuously meritorious and outstanding performance in military duty. He then embarked on a different era of responsibility and duty, taking the reins of Davidsons from his father and expanding the business as he expanded his family, welcoming two sons – Larry and Steve.
Sig’s active leadership in organizations such as the Virginia Association of Retail Clothiers and Roanoke Junior Chamber of Commerce throughout the 1950s ensured Davidsons was well poised as America’s shopping center fixation flourished into the following decades. Sig retired in 1985 and passed the Davidsons helm to his sons.

Sig believed he held a responsibility to give back to the community that helped foster his business success. He was continuously active in an array of civic and social causes in the Roanoke Valley which included the American Red Cross, United Way, United Jewish Appeal, Habitat for Humanity, Temple Emanuel, Menswear Retailers of America, Lewis-Gale Medical Foundation, Virginia’s Explorer Park, Roanoke Lifesaving Crew, Roanoke College, Center in the Square, Western Virginia Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, Israeli Bond, Jaycees, Downtown Roanoke Inc., and the Julian S. Wise Foundation.

Additionally, Sig initiated the presence of both the Literacy Volunteers of America and Big Brothers/Big Sisters in the area. As a pivotal community leader, Sig also played a significant role in propelling southwest Virginia toward desegregation. Due to his prolific and charismatic fundraising talents, having lunch with Sig was known to be “a pleasure with a price.” His community efforts were recognized with awards such as the 1989 Governor’s Award for Volunteering Excellence, Virginia Retail Merchants Association’s 1993 Retailer of the Year for outstanding contributions both as a retailer and a citizen, Roanoke’s 1994 Citizen of the Year for volunteer work on behalf of cultural and civic organizations, 1995 Outstanding Volunteer Fund Raiser Award from the National Society of Fund Raising Executives, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Roanoke College. Mr. Davidson died on March 8, 2020.

Sigmund Davidson was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1992.

Arthur Taubman was raised in Astoria, New York, on the Lower East Side. He left school at the age of 13 and worked as a department store stock boy to provide for his family of Austrian-Hungarian immigrants of Jewish ancestry. While still a teenager, Arthur Taubman enlisted in the US Navy during World War I. He worked with one of his brothers selling auto parts headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The chain operated stores as far north as Boston and as far south as Washington, DC. However, the Great Depression wiped out the family’s holdings. In 1932 he heard of a three-store auto parts company in Roanoke, Virginia that was for sale. “In order to help him raise the down payment to buy the chain, his wife Grace offered her wedding ring, which he then pawned along with his own Masonic ring.” The company, purchased in April 1932 from the Pep Boys, became Advance Auto Parts.

Although he did not have much of a formal education, he read books and applied his business sense to turn the company around and to be successful. “According to company lore he ran Advance by following a four-point philosophy: provide value to customers; earn a reputation for honesty and integrity; ensure repeat business by providing quality merchandise and good customer service; and treat employees like family.”

He opened at least one store every year except during World War II, and his company was one of the first nationally to give employees fringe benefits. The chain now has 372 stores. Taubman moved from president to chairman in 1969 and retired to Boca Raton in 1973. He stepped down to vice chairman in 1985.

His life also was marked by his attention to charitable and humanitarian causes. After Nazi Germany overran most of Europe in World War II, Jewish refugees trying to escape to the United States required a relative in America willing to sign an affidavit promising financial support. Taubman signed about 500 such affidavits, indicating that each applicant was a first cousin. Questioned by government investigators about the number of his relatives, Taubman replied that any Jew whose life was endangered was his first cousin.

During the same period, Taubman founded an organization for acquiring tire and other rubber products from American manufacturers for distribution through chains like Advance Stores. Today that company is TBC Corp., and its publicly traded stock is listed on the Nasdaq over-the-counter exchange. Taubman was president from its founding in 1948 until 1980.

In Roanoke, Taubman in 1966 received the first brotherhood award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He was a member of the Committee of 12, an informal group that worked behind the scenes for peaceful integration of public facilities starting in 1960. He was chairman of the Roanoke Valley United Negro College Fund.

Taubman was a founding member of the Roanoke Symphony and of United Way’s predecessor in the Roanoke Valley. He joined the board of First National Exchange Bank and in 1965 became a charter director of its successor, Dominion Bankshares Corp. He was a past president of Temple Emanuel, a member of Beth Israel Synagogue and a director of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Roanoke Memorial Hospital and North Cross School. A former member of the board of delegates of the American Jewish Committee, Taubman was listed in Who’s Who in World Jewery. He was state president of B’nai B’rith and Roanoke Valley chairman of the United Jewish Appeal.

He was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in April 1992 and died in March 1994 at his home in Boca Raton, Florida.

Arthur Taubman was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1992.

Horace Grover Fralin was born January 26, 1926, in Roanoke Virginia. A native of Southeast Roanoke, Fralin once lived over a Garden City grocery store operated by his father. After graduating from Jefferson High School and Virginia Tech, he worked for his father’s home-building business until he joined Waldron in 1962 to develop homes in Eton Hills. They built Penn Forest, Beverly Heights and many other housing subdivisions, apartments in Bent Tree, Bent Creek, Brookside and such commercial buildings as the Atlantic Cos. offices and the F&W office park off Virginia 419. Their Camelot Hall nursing home chain extends across the state.

Mr. Fralin was a leader of the effort to reopen Hotel Roanoke and a behind-the-scenes power broker trusted by university officials. He was a founding member of the Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center; a charter member of Ut Prosim, Tech benefactors who have donated more than $50,000 to the university or its foundation; and a member of the College of Engineering Committee of 100, advisers on curriculum and programming.

A former director of Dominion Bankshares Corp., Fralin “was fiercely private in the things he did with his time and his money,” said Warner Dalhouse, Dominion chairman. Fralin & Waldron has ranked in the top 100 housing companies in the nation with a sales volume of more than $125 million. On the state level, he served on the Highway and Transportation Commission and the Council of Higher Education. Fralin was chairman of Carilion Health Systems and former head of the Community Hospital board, Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Roanoke Valley Homebuilders Association. Mr. Fralin passed away in January 1993 at the age of 66.

Horace Fralin was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1993.

Samuel Lewis Lionberger was born on July 7, 1940, in Roanoke Virginia. He attended Virginia Heights Elementary School, Woodrow Wilson Middle School, and then Jefferson High School. His father worked at the John C. Senter Construction Company with his Uncle John and took over the company in 1950, when John retired. The name was changed to the S. Lewis Lionberger Company. Sam worked at the construction company during his summers and throughout his time at Roanoke College. The company was responsible for projects such as William Fleming High School, Roanoke Airport, and the Ponce De Leon Hotel in downtown Roanoke, to name a few.

After attending Roanoke College, Lionberger graduated from the University of Virginia with an engineering degree. One of the original surveyors of Skyline Drive, he took over and ran Lionberger Construction, which he established as one of the most respected and successful construction firms in the Roanoke Valley. His firm built numerous significant buildings in the valley, including Christ Lutheran Church, where Lionberger was a devoted member and trustee for many years. He served as chairman of the Roanoke Regional Redevelopment and Housing Authority and, in 1993, was named to the Southwest Virginia Junior Achievement Hall of Fame. However, his nominator said that his greatest legacy was “his integrity and his caring for others.” A plaque dedicated to his memory is located in the study room at Roanoke College named after him in the Fintel Library.  

S. Lewis Lionberger, Sr. was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1993.

J.W. Bill Davis was born in 1904 on a small farm in San Augustine, Texas. As a youngster, he hoed cotton for 50 cents a day. When he had saved $12, he left home and took a job as an addressograph operator with Gulf Refining Company. When Davis did two weeks’ worth of work in less than three days, the payroll boss promoted Davis to be his assistant. “It was so much easier than picking cotton that I didn’t realize I was breaking records for speed,” he once said.

Davis left the refinery to work in a country store, where he learned the skills of selling and promotion. From there, he had sales positions with several Texas oil companies. During the Great Depression, he succeeded in getting contracts with the only firms doing much business, contractors building roads for the state. In 1933, at the age of 28, Davis lost $136,000 in the stock market crash. He walked out of his broker’s office with just $60 in his pocket. “I can’t remember losing one hour’s sleep over going broke,” he said. “I knew prosperity was out there, and all I had to do was go out and get it.”

After going to Wichita Falls, Davis took over a wholesale distribution agency for Sinclair. The agency became the most outstanding of its size in the nation. In 1946 in Washington, D.C., he opened the first Frito plant east of the Mississippi River. He sold it to H. W. Lay Company in 1956, and Lay subsequently merged with the Frito Company of Dallas, forming Frito-Lay, Inc.
Later, Davis joined Dr Pepper in Roanoke, Virginia. Eventually, he became chairman of Dr Pepper Bottling Companies of Virginia. Soon, the franchise had the highest per capita consumption of Dr Pepper in the United States, and Davis joined the Beverage Hall of Fame. He resigned as chairman in 1975.

For many years, Davis was active in Roanoke civic affairs. He spent 30 years on the board of directors of Dominion Bancshares Corporation and was chairman of the executive committee for several years. When asked what made him a success, Davis said, “I just had to do it. It just had to be. There are more opportunities for today’s young people than there were in my youth, but you have to work hard and stay competitive. I was more than lucky. The good Lord patted me on the back until I became stooped.”

J.W. “Bill” Davis was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1994.

John W. Hancock Jr. was born in 1904, the son of the general manager of Roanoke’s streetcar company. He studied mining engineering at Virginia Tech, an institution that became one of his greatest loves, and attended the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. For 15 years, Hancock sold securities at a New York investment banking firm. But World War II intervened, and Hancock joined the nation’s budding air corps – where he became a lieutenant colonel.

Returning to Roanoke after the war, Hancock went into business for himself, selling Quonset huts, lawn mowers, sprinkler systems and metal windows. With the construction industry booming after the war, Hancock quickly expanded into manufacturing open-web steel joists used as supports for roofs, ceilings, and floors. But when the demand for steel during the Korean War made it difficult to get shipments from Pittsburgh, Hancock decided to build his own steel mill and eventually founded Roanoke Electric Steel in in 1955.

Financed by personal borrowing and the sale of a $300 stock-and-bond package to individual investors, the company eventually made him a multimillionaire. Each share of stock and both second mortgage bonds were worth $100 apiece. A year later Hancock opened the first minimill in the Southeast, employing less than 100 people. The business got off to an inauspicious start: within weeks a secondhand motor failed, and Hancock lacked the resources to pay for the repairs. He concluded that he had no choice but to shut down the plant. He relayed his decision to a Cincinnati scrap dealer, Irvin Bettman of the David J. Joseph Company, explaining that he was unable to pay for the scrap metal he had previously ordered. Batman offered more time, relieving Hancock’s immediate financial pressure. He then received further help from Louis Zinn, president of Port Everglades Steel Corporation, who helped ease cash flow by placing an immediate order for 1,000 tons of steel, as well as providing blanket orders to produce steel for his customers that Hancock could use at his discretion. In this way Roanoke Electric Steel was able to gain its balance and grow into a successful business.

Hancock was eternally grateful to the two men that saved his mill. He would continue to do business with the David J. Joseph Company and Port Everglades Steel Corporation for the rest of his life. In fact, he kept a medallion bearing the name of Louis Zinn on his desk and requested that succeeding presidents of the company maintain the tradition.

The 1980s were difficult years for the steel industry, yet Roanoke Electric Steel remained profitable and continued to expand. In 1985 the company acquired Socar, Incorporated, which manufactured steel joists in plants located in South Carolina and Ohio. A year later the Salem operations began fabricating steel reinforcing bars, establishing the RESCO Steel Products unit. The business would be expanded in 1988 when a nearby facility was also purchased. Also in 1985, at the age of 81, Hancock would step down as the chief executive of Roanoke Steel, although he would remain as chairman of the board. He was succeeded by Donald G. Smith, a longtime executive of the company and secretary of the corporation since 1967. Smith became president in 1985, then chief executive officer in 1986. Finally, he was named chairman of the board in 1989, as Hancock retired completely.

Hancock was a man of rare quality, known to be loyal and generous, revered by his workers and community. He was an influential force in Roanoke, contributing millions of dollars and countless hours to many civic causes, as well as Virginia Tech and other educational funds. A community leader who preferred to work in the background, he was instrumental in Roanoke peacefully achieving desegregation during the civil rights movement, while other Southern cities experienced riots and violence. He helped to form a group of local black and white leaders who quietly worked with businesses to eliminate longtime “separate but equal” practices.

His two most visible legacies in the Roanoke Valley may be the Center in the Square arts complex and the Explore Park, a living-history park under construction in Roanoke County. “There wouldn’t have been an Explore Park without Jack Hancock,” said park Director Rupert Cutler. “There probably wouldn’t have been a Center in the Square.” Hancock also contributed $1 million to endow an engineering chair at Virginia Tech, where a new engineering building bears his name.

“For so many of us, he personified Roanoke leadership,” said Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, one of the many successful political candidates Hancock supported as he crisscrossed party lines over the years. “Whether it was Explore or the Hotel Roanoke or Virginia Tech or the smart highway, Jack Hancock was there.”  “Jack Hancock just had a zest for life,” said Doug Cruickshank’s, a Richmond banker who was in Roanoke in the 1980s and headed the group promoting the Explore Park, of which Hancock was a key benefactor. “Here was a guy in his 80s planting oak saplings.”

Mr. Hancock was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1994 and passed away in 1994.

John W. Hancock, Jr. was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1994.

A Texas native, William R. Battle attended Texas Western University, now the University of Texas at El Paso, from 1941 to 1943 before joining the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was part of the crew that flew over the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay when Japan signed the surrender agreement with the Allies.

Battle, who followed his father into the insurance business, took a job with National Life and Accident Insurance Company in Nashville in 1948 after earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Iowa. He came to Roanoke in 1959 from Southwestern Life Insurance Company in Dallas.

He joined Shenandoah Life in 1959 as an actuary and was still serving as chairman of the executive committee of the board of directors when he died. He retired from the presidency in 1989, after leading Shenandoah Life through a period of significant growth. “He was an excellent administrator” and “a good, sound financial” executive, said Frank Clement, who picked Battle to succeed him as president in 1972.

“His greatest strength was in finance,” he said. Donna Musselwhite, a company spokeswoman who joined Shenandoah Life while Battle was president, called him “a very quiet and deliberate decision maker” who “inspired confidence in the employees” and in the community. “He seemed to genuinely care,” she said.

During Battle’s 17-year tenure as president, the company underwent both good and bad economic cycles. But overall, its insurance grew from $1.6 billion to more than $10 billion during that time, with assets tripling to $390 million.

“I think he provided excellent leadership over the years in a very steady and reliable manner,” said Willis M. “Wick” Anderson, who served for 25 years as general counsel and corporate secretary for Shenandoah Life. Battle came out of retirement from June to December last year to replace the man who succeeded him, Joseph Stephenson.

During his 35 years in Roanoke, he revealed a serious commitment to community involvement, both personal and corporate. He served on a variety of civic and corporate boards, including Community Hospital of the Roanoke Valley, the Salvation Army, Junior Achievement, and the Roanoke Symphony Society. He was also an elder at Second Presbyterian Church. He passed away in April 1994.

William R. Battle was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1995.

Gordon Churchill Willis, Sr., a native of Roanoke, Gordon Willis was born on April 5, 1920, to Bess and Holman Willis. He graduated from Jefferson High School and was an excellent student and patriotic young man. He eventually graduated from the United States Naval Academy and began serving his country during World War II in the Pacific Theater aboard the USS Idaho.

After the war, Gordon Willis became a carrier-based fighter pilot, flying F4U Corsairs from the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt before returning to Roanoke to help his father run the family business, Rockydale Quarries Corporation. He eventually became president of Rockydale Quarries Corporation in 1968 and successfully led the company until his retirement in 1994, continuing the family business’ strong tradition of outstanding customer service and commitment to the community.

Mr.  Willis’ contributions to the Roanoke Valley and Commonwealth are many and reflect his compassion, intelligence, and vision. He believed strongly in the power of education to change lives; he was one of the early organizers of the North Cross School and a strong proponent of what became the Virginia Community College System. He also generously gave of his time and talents as a board member of the Virginia Tech Foundation and as chair of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. A respected civic leader, Gordon Willis served on a biracial committee that worked for peaceful desegregation in the Roanoke Valley. His strong support for Virginia Tech’s Smart Road led to the creation of the state-of-the-art research facility, which has allowed transportation researchers to conduct thousands of hours of research.

Gordon Willis received numerous awards and accolades for his community service, including the Noel C. Taylor Humanitarian Award from Total Action Against Poverty and a Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He had the distinct honor of being named the Commonwealth’s Cultural Laureate by Governor L. Douglas Wilder in 1992 and was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1995. He passed away in December 2010.

Gordon C. Willis was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1995.